01
Multi-node
A single panel can select and monitor the local host and remote Linux nodes. Remote nodes do not require a TouchRack agent and are queried through a constrained SSH transport.
Project
TouchRack
A touch-first, multi-node homelab console designed specifically for physical displays attached to a Linux TTY, with no X11, Wayland, browser or desktop environment required.
01 / Overview
A physical console for the homelab
TouchRack turns a small touchscreen directly attached to a Linux system into a dedicated monitoring console. The interface is designed around the constraints of a physical console and can monitor both the local host and multiple remote Linux nodes from a single touch-first interface.
02 / Capabilities
Capabilities
02
System monitoring
CPU, memory, storage, temperature, disk health and containers are exposed through views designed around the limited space of the physical console.
03
Services
Important services are explicitly curated and normalized into common states regardless of whether they originate from CRUX, systemd, containers, HTTP or TCP.
04
Physical touch
Touch input is read directly through evdev. Display sleep handling includes a wake guard so the first touch wakes the panel without accidentally activating the control underneath.
03 / Media
TouchRack in use
The interface is designed around a physical touchscreen and compact Linux console rather than being a desktop application later adapted to one.
04 / Architecture
Architecture
TouchRack separates presentation from data collection so the interface does not need to know how each monitored resource is obtained.
Textual UI
The interface is built with Textual and includes a dedicated compact layout for small terminals such as the reference 64×18 physical console.
Node runtime
Each node is represented through a common identity, runtime and transport used by the different monitoring capabilities.
Providers
Host, storage, SMART, containers and services use independent providers that transform different information sources into models consumed by the interface.
Local / SSH transport
The same model can query the local system or execute defined read-only commands on remote nodes through OpenSSH.
Resilient state
Transport failures retain the last successful information as STALE while a shared circuit breaker prevents redundant SSH connections while a node remains unavailable.
Read-only by design
TouchRack is designed as an observation surface. Monitoring failures degrade the displayed state instead of turning the console into a generally privileged administration interface.
05 / Deployment
Deployment
Dedicated TTY runtime
The reference deployment runs TouchRack as a systemd service on a dedicated TTY through openvt. The runtime is installed independently under /opt/touchrack while configuration is kept under /etc/touchrack.
06 / Links
